Thursday, September 23, 2010

Don't Be A Yuck Mouth!

Who says you can't learn a thing or two from Saturday morning cartoons? Well, at least "back in the day" when I was little you could. The ultimate in educational cartoons was obviously School House Rock, hands down. Where else could you learn about bills becoming law, conjunctions, electricity, the Declaration of Independence and so much more, while being entertained and learning a catchy new tune. Man, those were some great little shows and their songs would just stick in your head all day so you couldn't help but learn about whatever they were teaching. If you watched cartoons in the 70's, you know what I'm talking about. You're singing the song to your favorite School House Rock show right now, aren't you?!

Although it wasn't from School House Rock, I also have another little catchy song that I learned from a cartoon back them. A few years ago I started singing it to Nicholas to get him to brush his teeth. It's called the Yuck Mouth song. It's about some guy that doesn't brush, has food in his teeth, and gets a cavity. This guy is gross so it really helped encourage kids to brush their teeth. Nicholas loved the song and he had me sing it over and over until he had it memorized. Wow, I actually learned something beneficial from cartoons that I'm teaching to my child 30 something years later. That just makes me laugh.

Well on the way to our Tiger Cub outing last night, we were singing the Yuck Mouth song. It was totally appropriate since our field trip was to a dentist's office!

Jamie at Dr. Wyatt's office was wonderful with the kids. She showed them some really cool xrays that she used to show the different parts of the teeth and the jaw bone. Nicholas thought these were really cool because they were kind of creepy looking since you are looking at part of the skull.

Then she taught the boys the technique for proper brushing. She did a great job with her instructions but I honestly don't know how much the boys heard. They were too busy going gaga over the giant mouth and giant toothbrush. Who knew that would be so exciting?!

Next the boys got to chew on disclosing tablets. These are tables containing a harmless red vegetable dye that sticks to plaque on your teeth so you can see areas that need more brushing. Nicholas did rather well but there are definitely some areas he needs to do a better job with.

I'm not sure if they really tell you anything about the tongue but all the boys had very bright pink tongues. They thought this was funny to show everyone their tongues.

I have never looked for disclosing tablets locally but I'm sure they are available. However, I know you can find them several places online and they aren't expensive. I'm going to stock up on some and let Nicholas see how he's doing from time to time. It's an easy way to inspire some extra careful brushing.

Jamie gave all the boys their own little dental mirror to keep. Nicholas quickly figured out how to use it with another mirror to see behind his front teeth.

Dr. Wyatt gave each cub a goodie bag complete with a new toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, finger puppet, mini flashlight, coupon to Sonic, and more. Nicholas really liked the two disposable gloves that Jamie gave them. They made fun balloons.

And now that I can't get that dang Yuck Mouth song out of my head, I thought I'd share it with you so you can catch yourself singing it as you walk down the grocery store aisles too.